Do you think you have to spend a lot of money to have great skin and look good? That’s what the major cosmetic companies want you to believe, isn’t it. With their $40 cleansers and $300 face creams and $50 foundations you would have to be pretty wealthy to keep up with a long-term routine on those brands. If you look closely at the product labels, many of the expensive brands have the same ingredients as the lower priced brands. The extra price you pay is to finance the company’s bazillion dollar advertising budget and the product’s excessive, and not very earth friendly packaging. Nothing says “I can afford the best, most luxurious products” like a fancy glass jar to hold your designer-label night cream with a $300 price tag! Do not forget to tell your friends how much you spent on it too. Why else would you spend that if you don’t actually have to? In this economic recession, less and less of us can actually afford the little comforts in life like good skin care products much less the designer-priced ones. What can you do to get what you need and love for your skin without having to choose between paying your electric bill or your cell phone bill this month?
Money-Saving Skin Care Ideas
Invest in a good moisturizer and sunscreen all in one for daily use on your face. Protecting your skin from the sun is the best anti-aging defense you have and you should be doing it every day, sunny or not, winter or summer. Spend the money on a 2 in 1 product rather than layering 2 separate products at twice the cost. Not only are you saving money, you are saving your skin from potentially very dangerous skin cancer. Keep in mind, sunscreens made for the body are not always suitable for the face, especially if you have problem skin.
Prevention and maintenance is better than repair, I always say. If you are neglecting your skin and skipping important steps of your skin care routine, you will end up spending more money in the long run on repair products and treatments. For example; you are too lazy to take off your make up before bed or to do your mask or scrub regularly. The result? Your skin gets clogged up, starts breaking out and looks terrible. Eventually you will wind up in the facialist’s chair or worse the dermatologist’s office, spending even more money. A situation you could have easily prevented. Maybe if you didn’t bake your face in the sun for so long, you could have put off those very expensive botox injections for a few more years. I’m all for it (in moderation, of course) but if I can somehow take steps to avoid it longer, I’d rather do that, wouldn’t you? If you can’t seem to make good skin care habits a regular part of your day then you can invest in a package of facials, usually at a discounted price so you can have your skin professionally cleaned every 4-6 weeks.
Having and maintaining a tan does not have to be expensive or harmful to your skin. Don’t even get me started on the dangers of using tanning beds or baking yourself to a crisp at the beach. You don’t need the lecture because you are well aware of the dangers of sun exposure, I’m sure. If not, I encourage you to find out. Invest in a good body scrub and self tanner and fake it. There are many excellent body lotions on the market that contain subtle self tanners them which are ideal for adding gradual color or for maintaining your self-tan. Self tanners look beautiful if your skin is prepped appropriately(exfoliate and moisturize first, always) and applied carefully and correctly. Don’t spend on a fancy brand because they all work the same way, with similar ingredients. You can get self tanners for as little as $12 and body lotions with buildable color for as little as $10.
Basically the message I am trying to get across is this: Maintenance and prevention cost less than fixing what could have been avoided in the first place. Think carefully about where your money really goes when you buy your favorite beauty products. With just a little knowledge and research, there are often cheaper, equivalent alternatives to be easily found. Try to be green and use products with less packaging. They usually cost less for that simple reason. Compare labels and brands and make sure you are not spending more, unnecessarily for basically the same ingredients.
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